Whoever teaches learns in the act of teaching, and whoever learns teaches in the act of learning.-Paulo Freire

DirectorDr. ​Rigoberto Marquez

Dr. Rigoberto Marquez is the Associate Director of Academic Programs and Community Engaged Learning for the Center for Comparative Studies in Race and Ethnicity. He has been engaged in social justice activism, community organizing, and direct action for 15 years. Rigoberto started his community engagement by working on issues of access and equity for Latina/o(x) youth in Los Angeles schools through different education equity organizations. He then turned to working on issues affecting LGBTQ youth communities. As part of the leadership team of Queer People of Color (QPOC) of UC-San Diego, he developed different programs and initiatives to support LGBTQ youth of color in the San Diego community. He soon started doing this work across the state and eventually at the national level as Chair of the National Queer Student of Color Caucus for the United States Student Association. Motivated to continue doing organizing work at the intersections of race, gender and sexuality, he served as an Organizing and Training Fellow for the National LGBTQ Task Force where he worked to mobilize communities in California on different LGBT policy issues. After his time at the Task Force, he became the first community organizer for Bienestar, a LGBT Latina/o Health organization in Southern California. In this role, he organized one of the first Spanish language canvassing models in the country that targeted Latina/o(x) communities in order to gain support for same-sex marriage. This model was eventually adopted at the state-level and served as one of the organizing tools during California's Proposition 8 ballot initiative that banned same sex marriage.

Rigoberto completed his PhD in Education at the UCLA Graduate School of Education and Information Studies. His dissertation, “Promotoras en Accion: the Discursive and Pedagogical Practices of Latina Immigrants Doing Queer Advocacy Work” focused on his collaborative work with Planned Parenthood Los Angele's Promotoras (Community Health Educators) on a LGBT Latino/a(x) Youth Empowerment project developed to encourage parent and community members in Latina/o(x) neighborhoods to become engaged in LGBT activism. Rigoberto has taught classes at UCLA, CSU-Dominguez Hills, University of San Francisco and Teachers College, Columbia University. Courses include Critical Race Theory and Praxis, Queer of Color Critique and Education Praxis, LGBT Issues in Education and the Law and Research Methodologies in the Humanities and Social Sciences.

Associate Director​Dereca Blackmon

Dereca Blackmon is the Associate Dean and Director of Stanford’s Diversity and First Generation Office (DGen). She began her path as an organizer as an undergraduate at Stanford where she worked successfully on a multiracial campaign to make the university core curriculum more inclusive. The campaign, which drew national headlines, sparked a lifelong passion for racial justice in grassroots and electoral organizing movements ranging from gender equality to police accountability. Through 20 years of nonprofit leadership and diversity and inclusion consulting, she has become a nationally recognized expert in creating uncommon conversations on issues of race, gender and socioeconomic status. At Stanford, her Engaging Difference framework and Intergroup Communications course, co-taught with social psychology pioneer Hazel Markus, have sparked new conversations between students, staff and faculty that move beyond the rhetoric of blame and shame to create brave spaces for authentic dialogues about identity and justice.

​Dereca will teach Solidarity and Racial Justice in the Spring.

Graduate Student CoordinatorJessica Stovall

Jessica Stovall is a doctoral student in the Graduate School of Education at Stanford. She studies Race, Inequality, and Language in Education (RILE), and she is working to interrupt systemic racial achievement disparities. A recipient of the 2014 Fulbright Distinguished Award in Teaching, Jessica spent a semester in Wellington, New Zealand, studying educational debts between white and indigenous Māori students.Since her return, Jessica has embarked on two projects – a comprehensive teacher professional development program and a workbook for teachers – both focused on eliminatingthe racial predictability of student achievement. Before Stanford, Jessica was an English teacher and instructional coach for 11 years, and she is currently the TA for the Stanford Teacher Education Program (STEP) English Curriculum and Instruction sequence. In her spare time she serves on the ASCD Global Education Advisory Board and creates professional development programs around equity for school districts.

Jessica will serve as the TA for Solidarity and Racial Justice as well as the co-facilitator of the cohort lunch meetings.

Community Mentors

​Laurel Fish (Anthropology '14) - Community Organizer at UNITE HERE Local 2Laurel participated in community-engaged learning throughout Stanford including CEL classes and writing a thesis on non-profit politics through Community Research Summer Internship. She is currently working as a community organizer with UNITE HERE Local 2, the hotel and food service union in San Francisco and San Mateo Counties. She works to build power with members and their communities by holding elected officials accountable for municipal development decisions; building coalitions around the multiple issues that affect the membership including housing justice and immigrant rights; and organizing community members to stand with workers.

Linda Lee (Asian American Studies '07) - Senior Development & Program Manager at Chinese Progressive AssociationLinda Lee is the Sr. Development and Program Manager for the Chinese Progressive Association in San Francisco, where she is responsible for CPA's resource development and communications work. In 2014, Linda co-founded Seeding Change -- A Center for Asian American Movement Building (www.seeding-change.org) and currently runs Seeding Change's National Fellowship Program for Asian American Organizing and Civic Engagement, which trains the next generation of young Asian American activists and organizers. As the daughter of Hmong refugees from Laos, Linda believes deeply in developing the leadership and power of young people and building intergenerational movements.

Timmy Lu - (Asian American Studies '05) - State Organizing Director at Asian Pacific Environmental Network​Timmy has nearly ten years of experience in the Asian American community, with skills ranging from direct action to field organizing for electoral campaigns. Timmy built up APEN’s civic engagement programs by developing custom voter databases to outreach Chinese voters, translating call lists for monolingual Chinese leaders, designing tools to identify Laotian voters, and providing essential research, targeting, and logistical support for APEN’s electoral organizing. Timmy is active in training a national pipeline of young Asian American activists in to community and labor organizing. He mentors students from his alma mater Stanford University, where he organized student-labor solidarity and antiwar demonstrations. A child of ethnic Chinese refugees from Vietnam, Timmy is deeply committed to working towards social justice for all.

Steve Williams ('92) - National Secretary at LeftRootsSteve is the national Secretary of LeftRoots, a national formation of social movement organizers and activists who want to connect grassroots struggles to a strategy to win liberation for all people and the planet. He was co-Director and co-founder of San Francisco based POWER. Prior to founding POWER, Williams was with Philadelphia Union of the Homeless and the welfare rights organizer of the San Francisco Coalition on Homelessness.

Sammie Ablaza Wills (Comparative Studies in Race and Ethnicity '16) - Director at API Equality - Northern CaliforniaSammie is an enthusiastic queer mixed-race Pilipina with a vivid love for their chosen family, social justice, and grassroots organizing. In the past few years, they have spent their time in movements for workers rights, ethnic studies, and racial justice. In all arenas, they strive to share ways for people to reflect on their identities, be vulnerable, and tell their stories. When they’re not planning events or making spreadsheets, Sammie enjoys crafting coffee, playing the guitar, spending quality time with pals, and envisioning a new world.

Faculty Mentors

Praxis Fellows will also have opportunities to connect with Faculty Mentors committed to the development of student activists and organizers. Mentors will support students in this work and help them connect their academic and research interests to their activist and organizing work.

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